LAKE ELSINORE — It shouldn’t be surprising that the Padres, with player development now more important to their organization than ever, would hire a manager with big league chops to run their high Class A team.

The last time you may have noticed Edwin Rodriguez he was managing in Dodger Stadium, as skipper of the Puerto Rico club that made it undefeated to the championship game of the World Baseball Classic before losing to the home team.

A few days after that experience — managing a roster brimming with talent and passion in big games before big crowds — had ended, Rodriguez was working the back fields in Peoria, Ariz., getting to know the players who would make up the 2017 Lake Elsinore Storm roster.

The juxtaposition hasn’t bothered him a bit.

“I’ve been doing this for a while. I have a lot of passion for the development of players,” Rodriguez said Thursday afternoon, hours before the Storm began its 2017 season with a 14-inning, 3-2 loss to Modesto.

“That I had the chance to manage in the big leagues or manage in the WBC, that’s fine with me. We all want to manage in the big leagues. But for me it’s not the ultimate goal. I’m staying in professional baseball and having the chance to develop players. I take a lot of pride in that, put it that way, so it’s not hard for me.”

Rodriguez, 56, managed Puerto Rico in the last two World Baseball Classics, and he managed the Marlins for the final 92 games of the 2010 season (after replacing Fredi González) and the first 71 of 2011 before stepping down. He was in the big leagues for 11 games over three seasons as a player, with the Yankees and Padres.

But he scouted for seven seasons after his playing career ended in 1987, and since then he has managed and coached at every level of minor league baseball.

His task here will be particularly important, although he received a jolt Thursday when it was confirmed that right-hander Anderson Espinoza, considered by Baseball America the Padres’ No. 1 prospect and No. 21 among baseball’s top 100 prospects, would start the season on the Storm’s disabled list with forearm tightness.

But the Padres now have a deep organization, as befits a team that has embarked on a massive rebuild. Others among those assigned to Lake Elsinore are San Diego’s No. 4, No. 8 and No. 10 prospects on Baseball America’s organizational list, right-hander Cal Quantrill, center fielder Michael Gettys and first baseman Josh Naylor.

Also on their roster are two players who were on the Padres’ 2016 list of Top 10 prospects but were nowhere to be found on that list in 2017. Shortstop Javier Guerra, the organization’s No. 1 prospect just a year ago, hit .202 and committed 30 errors and has a lot to prove. Third baseman Ruddy Giron, who was No. 4 on the 2016 list, hit .222 with a .589 OPS at low A Fort Wayne, though he had an impressive 14 games at Lake Elsinore at the end of the season (.426 average, 1.141 OPS).

Guerra, in particular, is one of Rodriguez’ projects. He’s a 21-year-old from Panama whom the Padres acquired from Boston in the Craig Kimbrel trade, and he and Manuel Margot — currently the big club’s center fielder — were considered the biggest return from that trade.

Language is a sometimes severe barrier, Rodriguez noted, as it is for many young Latin players still adjusting to a new land and a new culture. And Panama is something less than an incubator for baseball players.

“If you ask any high school player from Puerto Rico, the Dominican or the United States, they have a very good idea how to play the game,” Rodriguez said. “Panama, Colombia, Nicaraugua, they don’t play baseball much.

”So take into consideration the fact that he’s Latin, he doesn’t speak the language, he’s very quiet and his age … yes, he’s one of those guys (to whom) I have to pay a little more attention.”

The bad news? Guerra was 0 for 5 Thursday night. The good news? He cleanly fielded everything hit to him.

Gettys’ two-run homer in the fifth tied the game, and it stayed that way until the 14th. Former UC Riverside reliever Trevor Frank almost got out of a two on and none out jam, but DH Gianfranco Wawoe’s grounder to third hit the bag and caromed into short left field to score the go-ahead run.

Whatever wisdom Rodriguez passes on to his Class A players will have more credibility because of his WBC experience, and because these players saw the way stars like Yadier Molina, Javy Baez, Francisco Lindor, Carlos Correa and Carlos Beltran played for him.

“They relate to them,” he said. “They’re more open-minded.

“Listen, we’re going to develop. We’re going to make ourselves better players. But at the same time we have a chance to have fun during the year.”

The fun may have already begun. The Puerto Rican players dyed their hair blond as a bonding device, and Rodriguez — bald and clean-shaven — was the only exception. And he was reminded of it regularly.

“Somebody has to look professional here,” he said with a laugh. “I said that every day.”

For what it’s worth, when the Storm players took off their caps for the National Anthem Thursday night, a couple of them had their own blond dye jobs.

Jim Alexander is an Inland Empire native who started with his hometown newspaper, The Press-Enterprise, longer ago than he cares to admit. He's been a sports columnist off and on since 1992, and a full-time columnist since 2010. Yes, he's opinionated, but no, that's not the only club in his bag. He's covered every major league and major sports beat in Southern California over the years, so not much surprises him any more. (And he and Justin Turner have this in common: Both attended Cal State Fullerton. Jim has no plans to replicate Turner's beard.)